


Friends Who Hunt Together, Get Together

by shopfront



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Magic Bond, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-23 17:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14938898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/pseuds/shopfront
Summary: Neither Angie or Peggy have been assigned an approved, legally bonded partner for ghost hunting. So neither of them should really be trying to drive a ghost from Angie's newly purchased diner without outside assistance. Not that that's going to stop them.





	Friends Who Hunt Together, Get Together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saiditallbefore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore/gifts).



> I can't take credit for the idea of state-mandated ghost hunting relationships. It originated [here](http://allofthefeelings.tumblr.com/post/131680478195/i-just-had-the-worlds-most-amazing-fandom-dream) and I stumbled across it through saiditallbefore's requests.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Peggy said as she collapsed into a booth with a grateful sigh. Angie had spotted her as she walked in, and was already waiting by the table with a coffee pot. “It has been one hell of a day.”

Quirking an eyebrow, Angie produced a cup and saucer from seemingly nowhere and started pouring. “You want any food to go with your coffee? Technically the kitchen’s closed, but I can always make an exception for my favourite customer,” she said with a wink as she slid the freshly poured cup across the table to Peggy.

“Closed?” Peggy asked as she lifted her head from where she’d let it fall dramatically back against the wall. “I thought you were planning to keep the diner open longer once you’d purchased it?”

Angie’s mouth twisted. “Best laid plans. So was that a no on the food? I’ll have to be quick if you want me to catch Ronnie before he finishes his shift.”

“Oh, sorry, Angie. Yes, my usual would be wonderful, if it’s not too much trouble,” Peggy said.

“Coming right up,” Angie said, tapping two fingers against the formica tabletop as she turned away.

“You will come back and explain what you meant by best laid plans?” Peggy called after her.

“‘Of course, English. Whatever you want,” Angie said as she looked back over her shoulder with a grin. She disappeared into the kitchen a moment later, but Peggy continued to watch the door swing with a contemplative expression. Angie might have been smiling, but it had looked a little forced and Peggy wanted to get to the bottom of why. Fast.

When Angie re-appeared with a plate of food, Peggy brooked no arguments. “Sit,” she said as she took her first bite. Closing her eyes in bliss for a moment, she swallowed and then gestured imperiously with her fork to the seat opposite her. “Mmm, thank Ronnie for me, will you? Now please, tell me about your day. Whatever’s going on, I want to hear all about it while I eat.”

Once she’d looked briefly around the room at the slowly emptying diner and found no customers waiting for service, Angie gave in and flopped into the seat opposite after snagging a second cup for herself from a nearby table. “My day sucked,” she said miserably as she poured more coffee.

Chewing delicately, Peggy took care to keep her expression open and patient.

Angie made a deep noise of frustration and sunk further into the booth. “This place is haunted,” she whispered, holding a hand up to try and block her words from travelling further than their own table.

Peggy’s fork halted half way between the plate and her mouth. “But-"

“Ssshh,” Angie hissed. “Don’t say nothing that someone might hear.”

Still looking shocked, Peggy placed her fork neatly back down on her plate. “Surely that’s not legal?” she asked in bewilderment.

“Oh, it’s not, believe you me. But what am I gonna do about it? That jerk knew I was pouring every last penny of my wages into the down payment to the bank for this place. I can barely keep it afloat on the previous open hours and I don’t have no money for a lawyer to chase him down about it,” Angie said. She exhaled heavily and slumped against the table, idly reaching over and stealing a fry from the side of Peggy’s plate. “Can’t even afford to buy my own fries, for crying out loud.”

“Well, you’re certainly welcome to mine. I just wish there was something else I could do to help,” Peggy said quietly. She reached across the table and placed her hand on top of Angie’s.

Angie shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll think of something,” she said as she smiled weakly. “But if you happen to meet any ghost hunters who might be willing to do a girl a favour for a lifetime supply of free coffee, you just let me know.”

“Perhaps…,” Peggy replied slowly. She hesitated, but Angie turned a quizzical look her way so she forged on. “I’m not really meant to, you understand. We’ll have to keep it just between us and I can’t promise how effective it’ll be, either. I’m not used to working alone. But I _am_ used to working without a communicator. So I might be able to be of some assistance to you in this matter, if you’re willing to let me try?”

“You-,” Angie started to say, blinking hard. "Are you serious?"

Then a wide grin broke across her face. Like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, her whole countenance changed. Gone was the droop to the shoulders, and the grimace behind her smile. Almost vibrating with barely suppressed excitement, Angie leant in across the table.

“You saying you know how to hunt ghosts?” she hissed, darting a wary glance at the nearest customers. It took Peggy a moment to nod, too busy smiling at Angie's excitement. When she finally nodded, Angie’s eyebrows almost hit her hairline they shot up so fast. “Are you kidding me? That’s sure as heck not something you hear everyday!”

“Let's just say I picked up a few tricks during the war,” Peggy said with a smirk as she fiddled with her cutlery.

Angie sat back with a long whistle. “I’m surprised they got you working at the phone company, then,” she said admiringly.

Suddenly it was Peggy’s turn to shrug and act casual. “Oh, you know how it is. I was never officially paired up, you see,” she said wryly as she fiddled with her coffee. “Just because they were willing to let me do a little hunting during wartime despite that small detail, it doesn’t mean they’re still willing to let me do it now.”

With a grimace, Angie turned her hand over under Peggy’s and squeezed it. “Ain’t that the truth. You know, they tested everybody over here during the war and I was meant to join up as a communicator. Got the right scores and everything, I couldn’t believe it. But they booted me out before I even got to the training, said I talk too much or something. Can you believe that?”

Peggy grinned. “No, I absolutely cannot,” she said with a chuckle as she squeezed back. Angie returned the grin with a roll of her eyes and then slipped her hand away to pick up her cup.

“If you’re willing to take a crack at it, I’d be real grateful,” she said seriously as she took a sip.

“Well, I can’t make any promises,” Peggy replied, just as serious. “But I’m willing to give it a go if you are.”

*

Once the last customer had filed out, Angie locked up and pulled down all the blinds on the doors and windows. “You want more coffee, English? Or we also got some leftover cake back here. We might be waiting awhile, it hasn’t been starting up right away after closing or nothing. I think it might be one of those transient ghosts maybe, only popping up at night. It's the only reason I've been able to stay open the usual hours without worrying about bringing a police officer down on my own head. It must've been keeping pretty regular hours or somebody would have noticed when that old jerk still owned the place.”

“That would explain a few things. A wandering ghost isn't unheard of in a city a densely built as New York, and you’ve worked here for a long time to not have noticed any signs earlier,” Peggy said.

“I know, right,” Angie said as she dropped back into the booth with a fresh cup of coffee for herself. “I’d blame myself for not being observant enough if we were in the sticks, 'cause it’s been pretty tame so far. I suppose there's no knowing what it’d be like if I’d stuck around longer each night, though.”

“What can you tell me about it while we wait? I’ll make my own observations tonight, but it might help give me a leg up on figuring out how to banish it if I know more.”

Angie stirred sugar into her drink thoughtfully. “It’s broken a few glasses here and there, I know that. Seems to stop once I’ve left though, I’ve never come back to a worse mess than I remember leaving the place in. Luckily I’d planned to stock up on extra plates and stuff when I bought the place so that’s just been annoying more than anything,” she said, tapping a finger against her lower lip. “Oh! It likes to leave the tables and chairs all strewn around as well. That’s been a pain in my arse to fix each morning, let me tell you.”

Peggy quirked the corner of her lip in response. “I can only imagine. Well, at least it doesn’t sound particularly malevolent.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s something. Does me no good with the rules about not operating a business out of a haunted building, of course.”

Angie looked increasingly despondent as she spoke. Peggy was just thinking about reaching across to take her hand again when Angie’s cup started rocking.

“Oh, here we go,” Angie said, her frown turning into a grimace as she scrambled out of her seat. “Just watch, it’ll probably dump that-“

The mug overturned, spilling hot coffee across where Angie had just been sitting.

“What do you know, there it goes again. Good for nothing, ain't it? As if I don’t have enough to clean up each evening!”

Frowning, Peggy considered the slowly spreading pool of coffee. “That wasn’t exactly harmless, you could have been burned,” she said thoughtfully as she got to her feet and walked around the table. “And it's still a little early, isn’t it? I thought you said you normally had to wait a while before it showed up?”

Angie’s eyebrows drew together as she joined Peggy in considering the turned over coffee cup. “Yeah, you’re right. Normally I get the place spick and span just in time for it to make a mess.”

As if to punctuate her sentence, a pile of plates fell over behind the counter with a resounding crash. Ceramic shards went flying every which way, including through the gap in the counter for the staff and out into the main area of the room. Alarmed, Peggy stepped in between Angie and the counter, eyes darting from one corner to another.

“I have a bad feeling about this, Angie. I want you to stay behind me and start moving slowly towards the door,” she said as she snatched up her purse and started rifling through it. Both of them shivered suddenly as the temperature dipped, just as Peggy pulled out a compass.

“Sure thing, whatever you say,” Angie said nervously. She kept close behind Peggy, brushing up against her back as they began to move slowly across the diner. They hadn’t made it past more than a handful of tables before a terrible screech of bending metal filled the room, and the table nearest to them suddenly buckled. Everything on it - including the cutlery and napkins set out neatly for any last minute customers during the evening - went sliding towards them far faster than the new tilt of the table could account for, and then the whole thing came crashing down.

Peggy turned, still keeping Angie behind her. Moving too quickly to try and get clear of the falling table, one of them tripped and they both fell together in a tangle of limbs. As they fell, Peggy twisted them so that she remained between Angie and the rest of the room. One of the knifes on the table flying off the table caught Peggy a glancing blow to the thigh as a result, leaving a deep gash.

“Ow, dammit,” she cried out, and then again as they hit the floor. “Angie, are you alright?”

“Am I alright?” Angie asked, a slightly hysterical lilt to her voice. “You’re bleeding, English, I should be the one doing the asking! Are _you_ alright?”

Groaning, Peggy untangled herself reluctantly and sat back up. She kept a wary eye on the tables around them as she pressed a hand against the wound, but nothing else moved. “I’m fine, it’s barely a flesh wound,” she said, but she faltered a little as she tried to get to her feet without taking her eyes off their surroundings.

Angie moved faster, springing up and wrapping an arm around Peggy’s waist to help her.

“Now, you listen here!” she yelled at the room once Peggy was up.

“Angie, don’t-“ Peggy started to say, but Angie already had an angry fist raised as she railed at the empty air around them.

“We don’t mean you any harm,” Angie continued yelling. “That was completely uncalled for, look how you’ve hurt her!”

Warily, Peggy eyed the table nearest to them. But nothing on it so much as shivered.

“Now, I’m gonna help her to the door and them I’m gonna lock up like I do every night. Are you going to let us get out of your hair, or what?”

Silence reigned for a moment, and then the radio clicked on. There was a burst of cheerful music before it clicked off again. Everything else remained still, and Angie huffed.

“That’s more like it,” she muttered, and started urging Peggy to move. “Come on, English. My place isn’t far, I think it’s time we get out of here.”

“Very well,” Peggy said absently, still distracted by eyeing every sharp and delicate object in their vicinity. There were an unnerving number of knives and glassware around them, and a fair few table lengths between them and the door. But everything remained quiet as Angie helped her limp towards the door, only pausing to snatch up a napkin and slip it under Peggy’s hand where it was still pressed to her thigh. They made it out to the street in silence, and Angie locked up behind them without saying a word.

*

“You did quite well back there,” Peggy said as Angie helped her down onto a chair. It had taken a little longer to reach Angie’s apartment than they’d have liked. But, then, Peggy had been walking around with a conspicuous limp and a blood stain on her skirt. So getting a ride had been out of the question.

“What, back at the diner?” Angie asked. She pulled a face and waved Peggy off as she turned to rummage in a nearby cabinet. “Don’t talk stupid, English. I was worse than useless. You only got hurt 'cause you had to protect me.”

“Oh, I hardly think that’s what happened,” Peggy said as she watched Angie pull out a box and bring it over to the table. The lid was promptly lifted off, revealing basic medical supplies. “I suspect I would have been hurt no matter what we did, or whether you were with me. Whoever or whatever that ghost is, it didn’t like my being there one bit.”

“Doesn’t change that you took that knife to the leg so that I wouldn’t,” Angie said. There was a stubborn set to her mouth as she set about disinfecting Peggy’s leg.

Wincing a little, Peggy reached out and grasped Angie by the shoulder. “A whole war’s worth of instinct there, I’m afraid. It really isn’t the slightest reflection on your abilities.”

“That hurting you?” Angie asked, neatly dodgy Peggy’s declaration. She didn't shake Peggy's hand off her shoulder though, apparently content to let it linger.

“Nothing I haven’t managed before,” Peggy said with a grim smile as she eyed the needle and thread that had appeared in Angie’s hand. “It’s quite alright, Angie. Just do what you need to do. Though I must confess I’m a little surprised that you seem to know what you’re doing with that thing.”

Angie shrugged and bent back over the wound. “I told you I got thrown out of the communicator program, right? Well, I guess once that happened I wanted to find some other way to help. Seemed like all the best doctors and nurses were leaving for the front, and there weren’t enough left behind to help everybody else. So I guess you could say I picked up a few tricks of my own.”

With the occasional wince whenever a stitch tugged uncomfortably, Peggy finally let herself relax back in the chair. “You’re always surprising me, Angie.”

Angie glanced up through her eyelashes and smirked. “And don’t you forget it,” she said as she continued stitching. Peggy noticed her hesitate as she reached the top of the wound. It disappeared below Peggy's raised hem, and Angie seemed to have to steel herself before pushing the skirt even higher. Her fingers were gentle on Peggy's skin, making her shiver in a way that Angie mis-interpreted as pain. In response, she shifted a hand briefly down to Peggy's ankle, giving it a comforting squeeze before she completed the last few stitches.

Once she’d finished and washed up, Angie disappeared into the kitchen and re-emerged with two slices of pie. “I might not be able to afford my own fries, but at least there’s always leftover pie to bring home,” she said as she settled one of the plates in front of Peggy and handed her a fork. “Eat up, you’re gonna need it if you want that thing to heal right.”

Laughing under her breath, Peggy obligingly dug her fork in while Angie did the same with her own slice.

“I take it the ghost hasn’t been that malevolent before?” she asked between bites. She found herself drifting as she ate, idly considering the ruby red colour of Angie's mouth from the rhubarb in the pie before she caught herself and looked away again.

“Mm-mm,” Angie said with a shake of her head, her mouth full. She swallowed and blushed, wiping at her mouth. “No, it’s been annoying about moving everything about but otherwise it’s almost been downright friendly.”

“That’s what I was worried about,” Peggy said. She took another bite of her pie as she mulled it over. “I don’t think it’s a common problem. But I worked with another hunter during the war, and occasionally we would encounter a ghost that would become seemingly twice as angry in our presence. Almost as if it could sense that there were two hunters in the room.”

“You said you were used to working without a communicator, so I assume there wasn't one with you, yeah?” Angie asked, pointing her fork at Peggy. “Ain’t that the point of the program? 'Cause communicators help by calming them down while the hunter takes them out.”

“In theory, yes. But until someone speaks or attacks, it shouldn’t be able to tell which of us is the communicator. Or in our case, whether we even had one with us. Perhaps it's unusually sensitive.”

Angie shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe it was listening while we were talking?”

That brought Peggy up short, and she blanched a little. “But that would mean-“

“It’s haunting the place all the time. Guess I'm closing tomorrow,” Angie said quickly, looking troubled. “And the day after that, and the day after that, for however long it takes you to get back on your feet.”

“Angie, you can’t do that. How will you afford to keep things running?”

“I’ll figure something out, English. Don’t you worry,” Angie said with a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I got plenty of cards up my sleeve. Maybe I’ll even do what they tell everybody to do in these situations and call in the professionals at the Strategic Spiritual Reserve to do their jobs.”

Peggy sat up straight and dropped her fork with a clatter. “Angie, no,” she said, aghast. “If you can’t afford to close the diner, you definitely can’t afford to hire someone for this. Besides, I have a… funny feeling. The so-called professionals will probably charge you an arm and a leg and still bungle the job horribly. I promised you that I would try and help, let me take another crack at it before you give up. I didn’t think I’d learn enough the first night to get the job done immediately, anyway, remember? This is only a small set back.”

Glancing skeptically down at Peggy’s bandaged leg, Angie shrugged. “Well, alright. I suppose I’m not exactly in any hurry to rack up more bills. But you’re not going back without me, and not until you’re all better, you hear?”

Turning back to her pie, Peggy smiled. “I hear,” she said.

Angie reached across the table and gave Peggy’s hand a brief squeeze. “Good, because I’m gonna hold you to it.”

*

The next morning, it rapidly became clear that Peggy wasn’t going anywhere without Angie. Whether she’d intended to or not.

“Maybe I oughta have taken you to the hospital, after all,” Angie said over breakfast. The worry was clear in her eyes, no matter what Peggy said to try and soothe her.

“I’ve taken plenty more fire than this little thing. I promise I’m alright, Angie. You don’t need to worry.”

Angie propped her chin in her hand and watched Peggy finish her food. “What did you do in the war, anyhow?” she finally asked.

Choking on a mouthful of tea, Peggy gave Angie a slightly startled look. “Oh, this and that. Just whatever needed doing,” she demurred.

With a tilt of her head, Angie considered Peggy. There was a glint in her eye as she did so, and a cheeky smile lurked around the corners of her mouth. “Oh, I think it was a little more than that,” she said as she gathered up their breakfast things and carried them to the sink. “It’s alright, you don’t gotta tell me if you don’t wanna.”

“It’s not that,” Peggy said quickly, then hesitated and bit her lip.

“Consider it forgotten,” Angie said smoothly. “Now you wanna come through to the lounge, or what?”

“Oh,” Peggy said as she levered herself to her feet with a grimace. “I was thinking I ought to head home, actually. I don’t want to be in your way.”

Angie just raised a stern eyebrow and took Peggy’s elbow in a firm grip. “You won’t be in my way at all,” she said as she steered Peggy out of the kitchen. “In fact, I’m quite looking forward to having a house guest!”

Peggy continued trying to protest, but no matter what she said Angie refused to heed it. They finally settled in the lounge, while Angie plumped the cushions behind Peggy's back. Then she fetched Peggy a new cup of tea and the morning paper before she flicked on the wireless.

“Am I missing anything?” she asked, wringing her hands. “I want you to be comfortable. It’s my fault you're hurt, so I swear I'm gonna take good care of you while you recover.”

“I wouldn’t mind some company,” Peggy said in a soothing tone and patted the cushion next to her.

Angie blinked for a moment. “Oh, of course!” she said as she dropped down next to Peggy. “You sure there’s nothing else I can get you, though?”

“Not a thing,” Peggy said as she waited for Angie to get settled. She turned a little and accidentally knocked their knees together, but Angie didn't shift further away again. “I have been thinking about our conversation last night, though. About how the ghost become angry at my presence. I’d like to hear your thoughts, and maybe also a little more about what the program said to you about your skills as a communicator. If that’s alright?”

Taken aback, Angie raised her eyebrows. “Sure, if you really wanna know,” she said, then pulled a face. “Don’t know if there’s much more to tell though. I thought I might have a knack for something like that, on account of all the talking I do at work. Guess I ain’t as good at entertaining people as I thought though, ‘cause they just showed me the door.”

Peggy was quiet for a long moment. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said abruptly. “You said you hadn’t noticed any signs of malevolence before, correct?”

“Well, no. Much as I don’t like replacing the damn things, three broken glasses ain’t exactly a danger sign,” Angie said with a frown.

“And yet, when I was present it escalated from shifting furniture and cracking a few glasses all the way to stabbing me with a butter knife and trying to give you some serious burns with that cup of coffee. Then it just backed off when you asked it nicely! It doesn’t make sense, unless you do have some skill as a communicator.”

Angie snorted, and reached over to fluffy Peggy’s cushions again. “How much blood did you lose last night, English? I told you, they said I ain’t got what it takes in that department.”

Peggy let herself be re-arranged, and sighed happily once Angie was done. Despite her protests, she was much more comfortable for Angie's ministrations. It was nice to let someone care for her while she was injured, for once, even if she was loathe to admit it. “I don’t know about that,” she said thoughtfully, but Angie just rolled up the newspaper and smacked her playfully on the arm with it.

“Don’t be putting strange ideas in my head,” she said with a grin. “Now shut up and drink your tea.”

*

It took Peggy a few more days to talk Angie around to the idea. Luckily, it took nearly as long before she could walk without limping. So she had plenty of time to convince Angie, seeing as she refused to let Peggy return alone to her own apartment.

“I don’t see what difference it makes,” Angie had said whenever Peggy tried to bring it up again. “I ain’t partnered with anyone and nobody at the program is gonna look at me twice if I want to try and find someone to pair up with, so it won’t help us any.”

On the second day, Peggy changed tracks. “There’s a few initial bonding rituals,” she pointed out. “None of them require a supervisor from the program because they’re all intended to be fully reversible and they shouldn’t interfere with someone finding a different partner to hunt with later on. It’s more of a compatibility test than anything else. But the part that allows for compatibility to be tested means it should hopefully connect and amplify our abilities a little. Perhaps even enough to tackle this ghost of yours more effectively.”

Angie had initially scoffed at the idea. Finally, she’d asked, “even if I believed this idea of yours that I'm really secretly a good communicator, why’d you wanna risk pairing yourself up with me? You always seem plenty happy with your job at the phone company and whatever else it is you get up to when you're not banging down my door for coffee.”

Stunned, Peggy had struggled for words. “Why wouldn’t I want to risk that?” she'd said eventually. “You’d make an excellent partner, Angie. Of that I have no doubt.”

That, at least, seemed to have hit the mark. Still disbelieving but now blushing slightly, Angie had just made her excuses and gone back to fussing about cushions once more.

“Alright, I’ll try it,” she’d said a few hours later, after dinner.

It was a simple matter from there to clear a space in the lounge. Peggy had needed Angie’s help to get down on the floor and draw the paired symbols for them to stand on, and then her help again to get back up. But once it was done, all that was needed was for them to stand in the correct spot and say a series of synchronised chants.

“I really don’t think this is going to work,” Angie said dismissively before they began the chant. But the air in the room had shifted when they'd stepped onto the symbols, and she seemed a little less sure.

A knowing look settled on Peggy’s face as they began. There was a familiar feeling rising in her, one that she remembered well.

Angie didn’t know what to think, though. She'd felt a strange sensation and it had taken all of her focus to keep up with Peggy during the first few words. But the longer they spoke, the easier the words came, until she barely even noticed she was still chanting.

The feeling washed over her again and again, bouncing between them and intensifying with each reverberation until Angie was dizzy with it. As it rose up, so too did the urge to reach out, to touch. She couldn’t pull her eyes away from Peggy, hyperaware of every quickened breath and lick of Peggy’s lips and with each word spoken she swayed closer. Angie swayed too, just for a moment, before she dragged herself back again.

Finally, after a few aborted movements, their fingers touched. Then the magic suddenly fell away, as quickly as it had risen. Left high and dry to gasp for air, they clung to each other’s hands.

“Gosh, that was… I don't know what that was,” Angie said breathlessly. With no self-control left to halt her own impulses after fighting so hard against the swell of magic, she reach over and anchored a hand in Peggy’s blouse where it had come untucked from her waist. “Do you mind if I?” she asked cautiously. Her eyes flicked down to Peggy's mouth for a moment and she licked her lips before looking back up.

Peggy stared back at her in silence for a moment, and then suddenly moved forward. Angie’s hand slipped from tugging at Peggy’s clothes to resting against her waist as they drew closer together.

“Oh, what the hell,” Peggy murmured as she leant down slightly and brought their lips together.

The same familiar sensation swept through Angie again at the touch, before it finally faded away completely. It left a warm, tugging feeling in her belly, almost as if it was anchoring her to Peggy.

“That chant thing wasn’t so bad,” Angie murmured as they separated. She kept a hand on Peggy's waist, reluctant to test things so soon by stepping off the symbols. Her knuckles brushed bare skin each time Peggy took a breath, having slipped under the hem of her blouse without her noticing. Each touch sent a shudder through both of them. “Some of the girls back in the program were sure it wouldn’t be so, I don't know, pleasant, I guess.”

Peggy looked worried, however. “No, it shouldn’t have felt quite like that,” she said. Then she took a slow step backward. Angie made a noise of complaint and tried to move with her, but Peggy reached out to hold her back. “I don’t want to, either,” she said quickly. “But we need to know.”

“Need to know what?” Angie said, working herself up into a huff already. “I don’t see why- oh.”

Peggy had taken a second step back and the feeling in her belly tugged tight at the increased distance. “Yes, oh,” Peggy said, moving closer once more. “It should fade overnight, but we’ll need to stay close until then.”

Stunned silent, Angie re-attached her fingers to Peggy’s blouse and then stared down at her own hand.

“I’m terribly sorry, Angie. I think this might be my fault-“

“You what?” Angie asked, her head snapping back up.

“I told you that they were compatibility tests. Sometimes, if one of the people involved has strong feelings about their prospective partner, it can amplify things in unexpected ways. It’s very rare, but-“

“You saying you’re sweet on me, English?” Angie asked softly.

“I- Well, that is-,” Peggy said, then sighed and visibly gathered herself. “Yes, I suppose I am. As I said, I’m really very sorry. You didn’t sign up for a full hunting bond and-"

She cut off again with an oomph as Angie launched herself at Peggy. Stretching up on her toes, Angie planted a firm kiss on her lips. “Oh thank god,” she said breathlessly, then started to laugh. “I was worried it was just me!”

*

After breakfast the next morning, they made their way in comfortable silence across New York to the diner. Glass shards crunched under their feet as they unlocked and pushed open the door to enter. Carefully, Angie locked the door again behind her, and then they turned to survey the room together.

The ghost hadn’t sat idly by while Peggy was recuperating. Angie could only hope that no neighbours had lodged complaints while it destroyed the place, or she’d be in for a whole new set of problems.

The link between them trembled when Angie started speaking. Peggy threw her an encouraging smile as she began to inch across the room away from Angie, eyes fixed on the wildly swinging arm of her compass as she went. When there was a strange sort of lull moment in the diner and Peggy went still and vigilant, this time Angie did as well. Almost as if she had a new set of senses to feel her way with, she found her attention drawing to one part of the room or the other, and when she spoke in that direction something unseen seemed to quiver and go still.

Each time, Peggy snuck forward while Angie spoke. She talked and talked until Peggy was in position. Then Peggy would reach for a tray or a plate, or even a knife, and swing it with deadly accuracy at some otherwise innocent looking patch of air.

Once or twice, Angie was distracted by the stunning picture that Peggy made throwing herself at their target and the ghost got the drop on them. When it did, Angie imitated Peggy and took a swing at it with the closest thing that came to hand. Nothing ever connected, instead whistling uselessly through the quivering air even though she was certain beyond a doubt that her aim was true. Despite her earlier disbelief about her abilities, each failed attacked left Angie more certain that Peggy was right. Angie wasn’t a hunter. She was meant to talk up a storm while Peggy took the swings.

Finally, seemingly as exhausted as they were, it gave one last haunting wail and fled through a new crack in one of the windows. The hair on Angie’s arms stood on end for a moment as it left, but she ignored it in favour of beaming at Peggy.

“We did it!” she cried as she ran over and threw her arms around Peggy.

“Yes, we did,” Peggy said, returning the hug enthusiastically.

“Apparently I’m not too bad at talking, after all,” Angie said with a laugh as she pulled back. Instead of answering, Peggy pulled her into a long kiss, right there in the middle of the diner surrounded by crushed chairs and shards of glass and crockery.

“This time, I'm not surprised in the least,” Peggy said as she tenderly brushed a stray lock of hair back out of Angie’s face. "You were a wonder to watch work, Angie."

“Shut up, English,” Angie said, as she blushed and pulled Peggy down into another celebratory kiss. She paused just before their lips met. "You talk too much."


End file.
